1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toll road toll paying method (and apparatus) using a portable terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, systems such as an ETC (Electronic Toll Collection System), which can collect a toll at a tollbooth on a toll road such as a turnpike, etc., nonstop and cashless, have been introduced to relieve traffic jam.
With the ETC, a dedicated terminal (ETC equipment) is mounted on each automobile, and a toll is automatically charged according to a road-car radio communication between an antenna installed at an ETC gate in each tollbooth and the mounted ETC equipment when the automobile passes through the tollbooth.
As described above, the ETC can possibly be of some help for relieving traffic jam. However, the load of purchasing and installing ETC equipment is imposed on a user.
In contrast, conventionally, for example, the invention recited by Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-7562 is proposed. This invention proposes a technique which eliminates the need for arranging the above described dedicated terminal (ETC equipment), and implements a toll collection with a cellular phone whose ownership rate is high.
The ownership rate of a cellular phone is very high at present, and a plurality of cellular phones exist within an automobile in many cases if a plurality of persons are riding in the automobile.
If a plurality of cellular phones exist within an automobile as described above, the above invention recited by Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-7562 has a problem of being unable to cope with the case where a position registration signal is returned from each of a plurality of cellular phones in response to an annunciation signal when the automobile passes through a tollbooth.
Furthermore, if a plurality of persons are riding, for example, a toll is sometimes desired to be shared or split at a desired ratio (for example, 50 to 30 to 20 percent for 3 persons).